I hate being right all the time

…Being a “zoophile” in modern American society, Beck says, is “like being gay in the 1950s. You feel like you have to hide, that if you say it out loud, people will look at you like a freak.”

Now Beck believes he and other members of this minority sexual orientation, who often call themselves “zoos,” can follow the same path as the gay rights movement. Most researchers believe 2 to 8 percent of the population harbors forbidden desires toward animals, and Beck hopes this minority group can begin appealing to the open-minded for acceptance.

But if those like Beck are to make the same gains as gays, it’s apparent they will have to do so without the help of gay rights groups, which so far want nothing to do with a zoophile movement. What’s more, they will have to wage battle with well-funded and politically connected animal-protection activists.

And the most difficult task will be to take possession of their public image…

However, I think a case could be made that animals don’t really have a clear means of expressing consent… Pets are used to do what they are told (other than cats) and to take what is being meted out to them. However, those “zoos” people would be welcome trying to obtain consent from black or white bears, cougars, wolves and others. This might have the useful outcome of weeding out many of them! (Just joking of course)

Maureen

The problem is that PETA and similar extreme animal rights groups argue that animals have exactly (or more) rights than humans, so imagined consent is difficult to fight on these terms.

The Deuce

“The Slippery Slope Fallacy” – the modern term for correctly drawing out the logical implications of an idea.

ds

Or maybe the slippery slope is bullshit? I support gay rights. And this is the point where I join you guys.

Therese Z

Why? Because your own personal “ick” or uneasy factor has been triggered? There’s no logic in that, other people’s sensibilities obviously see no problem with this.

As soon as you abandon biology and take up feelings as the decider of what is moral and sensible, this is what happens.

Ted Seeber

Huh? Why? Unless of course it’s the consent issue. But even that is purely subjective- there’s no material reality in consent under a philosophy that rejects objective morality.

The Deuce

And in addition to that, we don’t ask for animal consent before we enslave them, breed them, euthanize them, eat them, or make useful items out of their carcasses, so why, on the materialist view of sexual morality in which no sexual behaviors are intrinsically wrong and degrading to the human engaging in them, should lack of animal consent be an issue in this one area?

ds

Look, if you guys want to argue on behalf of animal buggery I guess I can’t stop you. But I’m still going to be against it.

jenesaispas

LOL, “I’m not going to bother arguing against that”.

http://znfrey.com/blog/ Zach Frey

So, we are now about to be subjected to propaganda on behalf of The Love That Dare Not Bleat It’s Name?

Lovely.

Cinlef

I call shenanigans on the claim that 2-8% of the population has “zoophile” desires. If “most researches” believe that he should be able to cite an actual source. I’d wager good money that the actual rate is noticeably below 1%

N.B. The number of people with such desires obviously has no bearing on the moral issue.

Mark Shea

It’s of a piece with the “10% are gay” agitprop that was used to promote the gay agenda. Inflate the numbers: normalize, normalize, normalize. It’ll be interesting to watch the gay community adopt the pose of the stodgy conservatives trying to draw the line against the cultural rot of this upcoming generation of perverts: rather like 4 time married no fault divorce Republicans suddenly caring about Traditional Marriage.

Ted Seeber

I’d also point out that while homosexuality is still uncommon in India, Zoophiles and pseudosexuals seem to be depressingly common in the third world.

Marthe Lépine

Well… Maybe the others have all been eaten by the object of their desires…

DTMcCameron

The only consume-ation man might have with animals, one way or the other.

Sandra Miesel

But they’ve taken the key first step: claiming the label “sexual minority.” How long before necrophiliacs come out of the closet..er…masoleum?

Mark Shea

True. And with them the whole “consent” conundrum is a moot point. There was an atheist in these comboxes a month or so ago who struggled mightily to construct a basis for condemning necrophiliacs while maintaining his “consent is the sole criterion of the good” ethos. Not a pretty sight.

The Lisa

I remeber reading somewhere that Jefery Dahmer and Ed Gene likely had a bad gene that could be mapped out someday just like the gay gene. Ergo, someday at the Superbowl, some Lady Gaga type will be singing a form of I Was Born Like This in regards to necrophilia/serial killing. No doubt some genius will find a zoo gene as well.

This is the problem with equating Nature’s Design with Nature’s Genes, or better put, confusing genes with truth. Anyway, if 1% of people are zoos, well they could be freaks of nature, but if nature itself creates TEN PERCENT, well that’s part of nature isn’t it?

Ted Seeber

At which point will we see 90% of homosexuals, 90% of Zoophiles, 90% of Cannibals, and 90% of pseudosexuals aborted before birth, just like we have with Downs Syndrome children?

DTMcCameron

Oh, never. It’s one thing to kill a baby ’cause it’s a girl, because, you know, that’s private and between a mother and her physician. What you’re describing, sir, is genocide!

ds

Maybe this is a little off topic, but what about the ethics of identifying unwanted genes and then excluding zygotes with those genes, only meeting up the right sperm and egg? You don’t have a human being because conception has not occurred at the time of gene exclusion.

Steve S

In addition to adopting the “sexual minority” label and inflating the demographic numbers, their best bet is to get TLC to do a series that shows how nice and friendly the “zoos” are (maybe in conjunction with Animal Planet), and then ABC can get a primetime sitcom up and running to reinforce the “but look how nice they are!” argument. In our society, sentimentalism wins out every time.

The Lisa

A reminder: the whole GM debate was about “fairness in visitaion rights, estate matters, and tax breaks.” It was never about legitimization! I have no problem with inter-species relationships, go for it, but I object to allowing, say, a yak or an anaconda into a hospital to visit its lover. Similarly, if we start granting tax benefits to sheep, it could explode the deficit. Call me a zoophile.

Marthe Lépine

I would not really have a problem with the yak… A Polar bear or a lion would be more problematic!

Ted Seeber

If it isn’t about legitimization, then why all the lawsuits in Canada over it, and why are cities all over the United States forming “Human Rights Commissions” to punish heterosexuals over a lack of legitimization?

http://www.virtue-quest.com/ Robert King

the whole GM debate was about “fairness in visitaion rights, estate matters, and tax breaks.”

Except that, here in Washington at least, the current law provides exactly the same economic and social rights for civil domestic partners. Why, then, did the legislature consider it important to apply the name “marriage” to same-sex couples?

http://austrolibertariancatholic.wordpress.com Martial Artist

@Robert King,

You write

… in Washington at least, the current law provides exactly the same economic and social rights for civil domestic partners. Why, then, did the legislature consider it importand to apply the name “marriage” to same-sex couples?

I suspect that the answer is almost trivially simple. As prominent American lay Catholic canon lawyer pointed out in his blog <(In the Light of the Law) on 2/3/2012, discussing the Planned Parenthood vs. Susan G. Komen Foundation flap:

Wrong craves reassurance that it’s right… it also helps them sleep at night.

Pax et bonum, Keith Töpfer

Sadie

Even if the animal cannot consent to sexual activity, who cares? Cows do not consent to being killed for meat. My dog did not consent to being neutered. Our “sexually liberated” culture will awkwardly try to explain why these “zoos” are acting immorally, then give up and declare zoophobia to be the real problem in society.

N.B. The number of people with such desires obviously has no bearing on the moral issue.

I’ve read figures suggesting that anywhere from 10% to 1/3 of the white families in the antebellum South owned at least one slave. Somehow the North didn’t consider that a persuasive argument for catering to their wishes.

Meggan

So would another letter be added to the alternative sexuality alphabet soup: LGBTZ?

The Lisa

LGBTZ would leave out polygimists, man-boys, and members of the pro-incest community. And all of these groups can use one of the same moral argument as the brownshirts: 1) Morality is up to me, because there is nothing above me, nothing beyond me, no designer. 2) If there is a designer of nature, then I am part of nature, created as I am, according to the design, and therefore my desires are also natural.

http://stevenadunn.wordpress.com Steven Dunn

You’re already behind the times, fogey. The acronym has already gotten longer(and more self-parodying). Once you tack on the zoophiles it’ll be LGBTQAZ.

http://stevenadunn.wordpress.com Steven Dunn

Personally, I’m awaiting the day they run out of letters and are forced to begin using ideographic symbols.

thomas tucker

@Sandra: that reminds me of the necrophiliac bumper sticker “Rigor mortis makes me hard.” One of society’s major problems now is the inability or unwillingness to distinguish the normal from the abnormal, and worse yet, to even recognize that there might be a distinction.

victor

Wait? What’s wrong with loving zoos? Most of my most cherished childhood memories took place in zoos. I’ve been in zoos in Toledo, Detroit, and Minnesota (the zoos in Minnesota are by far the best). In fact, I’ve done everything I can to pass my love of zoos on to my children. If loving zoos is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

Cinlef

If we are going for precision why use -phile which derives from philos which is utterly not what is at play here, surely there is some suffix derived from eros they ought to be using instead

DTMcCameron

Yeah, as is I think it roughly translates to an Animal Lover, or, um, ah…Hmm.

kenneth

Any society that truly can’t draw a distinction between consenting human partnerships and animal abuse has inbred itself below the intelligence of the animals its using as a cover for homophobia. If our species really buys into this smokecreen of an “argument”, an extinction event is the kindest thing that could happen to us.

Ted Seeber

Trouble with that are the number of homosexual relationships that begin as non-consenting. There’s a reason NAMBLA exists.

The Lisa

With all due respect — I certainly can draw the distinction between the coupling of, say, Kenneth and Earl, and the coupling of Kenneth and a holstein. However, I cannot find any distinction in the moral argument in favor of both of these partnerships. How can Earl be moral and Bessy not? That is Mr Shea’s point. Once you cross the line, all genital relationships are equally valid

DTMcCameron

Japan has, as I understand it, made great forays into relationships between, well, not-genitals. They’re rather handily going extinct as a result.

kenneth

Again, any religion or philosophy that can’t see the Great Wall of China-sized line of consent has nothing to offer the world as a source of moral reasoning.

Mark Shea

The dog humping my leg seems warm and willing, kenneth. Why the magical belief in “consent” here, but not when it comes to eating a cow? And in the case of necrophilia, what’s the difference between a husband and his deceased wife and the husband and an inflatable Japanese doll. Neither can give consent. Welcome to the wacky world you have helped to create, kenneth.

kenneth

The world I’m helping to create enables people to apply moral reasoning to navigate the real world that exists between kindergarten blind absolutes and nihilism. The whole “eating the cow” thing is only a Gordian Knot to the save marriage folks. The rest of the world has moved on from that problem. We eat cows, yes, but we set a standard for humane treatment. Even though we don’t extend them the same sorts of rights as persons under the law, we recognize legal and ethical constraints to our power over them.

We have laws regulating their treatment in captivity and slaughter and experimental use, laws banning most forms of blood sport like cockfighting and increasingly bullfighting, and give people real prison time for torturing and even extreme neglect of animals. We managed to do all this fancy ethical and moral reasoning even in the face of Lawrence v Texas and Stonewall or the APA’s de-pathologizing of gay orientation, or whatever you imagine is the event horizon beyond which no moral judgments can ever be rendered again. It’s really not a stretch of ethical or legal imagination to draw lines around bestiality as something that poses real physical and probably mental harm to the animals in question. You all are the only ones tumbling down the “slippery slope”.

kenneth

In any case, the problem of how to confront bestiality in criminal law and/or psychology has nothing whatever to do with gay marriage. That is an issue that has nothing inherently to do with “genital issues” and everything to do with the unique ability of humans to engage each other as emotional and spiritual equals and to give the same sorts of consent to their interactions.

Necrophilia and the doll thing have even less to do with anything in this debate. As I’ve said before, these sorts of arguments are admissions that you’re holding no face cards in the debate game about gay marriage. Posts like this are signs that you’re not even playing the game anymore. You’re resorting to throwing the chips and the ashtray at the guys who won the pot fair and square.

Mark Shea

The argument from explosive personal incredulity may intimidate suckers, but the reality remains that the “consent is the sole criterion of the good” and “how can it be wrong if it feels so right?” ethos that completely undergirds your arguments for gay marriage leave the culture wide open for this stuff. All your argument come down to, in the end, is table pounding. As I say, it will be fun to watch guys like you suddenly attempting to remain aloft having just spent years sawing off the branch you sat on.

kenneth

Any system which requires and trusts people to draw distinctions and apply reasoning to problems “leaves the culture wide open.” Six Day Creationists for a century and a half have been crowing that humanity lost all basis for moral reasoning once the literal truth of Genesis hand-made creation was even questioned. A not too dissimilar argument was used against heliocentrism, and demoracy, and freeing slaves, and giving the vote to women. Once you tinker with the “natural order” it was said, anything goes. The slightest deviation from rote rule and incorporating new information is fatal. People will have no way of drawing any limits or distinctions on anything.

It wasn’t true then and it isn’t true now, and if it ever becomes true, we’re ready for extinction. Any species that can’t find a basis for moral reasoning and action in the face of homosexuality is a species that never had a branch to sit on, let alone saw off. Any species with that dearth of imagination is simply not up to the challenges of the 21st Century and probably couldn’t even rediscover metal tools or the mouldboard plow again from first principles.

Alias Clio

Kenneth writes: “Six Day Creationists for a century and a half have been crowing that humanity lost all basis for moral reasoning once the literal truth of Genesis hand-made creation was even questioned. ”

Really? Most Creationists that I know were worried that questioning the literal truth of Genesis would lead to questioning the truth of the entire Bible, until everyone came to see it as a merely metaphorical account of God’s work through history, or dismissed altogether as a fantasy. In this, alas, the Creationists were not far wrong, so perhaps your amused dismissal of the dilemma they foresaw is too wholesale.

I do not think that the moral issues raised by gay marriage bear any resemblance at all to those raised by “zoophilia”, or whatever it’s called. I do think that insisting that mutual consent alone authorizes a sexual encounter is decidedly risky.

Leaving that aside, though, I agree the “consent” issue has nothing to do with gay marriage at all (if that is what you have said – I’m not sure), because the argument for gay marriage has never rested primarily on the fact of consent. Rather, the argument in its favour is built on the inherent right to marry the partner of one’s choice, AND the notion that there is no effective difference between gay and straight couples, so that denying marriage to the one and allowing it to the other group must be purely irrational. It is this idea – that there is no difference worth noting (in law or debate) between gay and straight couples, that particularly irks me. As a woman – as a “straight” woman – I find it an insult, as it glides over all the difficulties of harmonizing the very different interests of men and women in a marital relationship. As a citizen, I think that this refusal to see reality (i.e. the differences between the sexes, and the possibility that these might have some bearing on the condition of marriage) is likely to end in both tragedy and farce, or some ghastly combination of the two.

Begging your pardon, Mr Seeber, if that was addressed to me: I must point out that the consent of the nanny goat was not in question in this incident. I expect that modern persons reading this story might worry about the goat’s consent, but those of a more traditional bent would simply try to ascertain whether the man was willing to take appropriate responsibility for the beast whom he had “used as his wife,” which would involve paying a sum to her previous caretaker/owner, and assuming her care after “seducing” her. (We can only surmise, however, that he was not the father of her Kid.)

Seriously, although many people defend gay sexual encounters on the grounds of consent, those who support gay marriage have seldom done so upon the presumption of consent alone. As I tried to argue above, they generally rest their case on their belief in an inherent human right to marry the partner of one’s choice, AND the notion that there is no effective difference between gay and straight couples. It is this latter argument I find most disturbing, and, in its blindness, dangerous to social harmony.

Ted Seeber

Back to Japan- what about pseudosexuals who have sex with robots? Or are we all following the new seasons of Futurama- robosexuals?

kenneth

What about them? There’s no moral dilemma any deeper or more novel than that of masturbation. This has no serious ethical dimension and certainly no relation to a marriage issue unless and until robots are created with true sentience and the capacity for emotion.

ivan_the_mad

“This has no serious ethical dimension and certainly no relation to a marriage issue”. Prove that this isn’t the case now. Assertions are cheap.

ivan_the_mad

Rather, prove that this is the case.

kenneth

Unless some robotics experts can demonstrate otherwise, robots, for all their increasing physical capabilities, are still nowhere near the sort of self-awareness of quasi-sentient animals, let alone humans. They are devices programmed to act with canned responses and algorithms that allow them to perform pre-determined routines and tasks. I’ve seen robots that are sophisticated enough to “learn” from mistakes and data gathered along the way, and we’ve probably all been chatted up by “spam bots” that seem to offer (semi) realistic responses to what we say. (They “work” mostly because men in chat rooms late at night tend to talk about very predictable things).

I have not seen any evidence that any robot has developed the kind of awareness of “myself” or to ask the big open ended questions such as “who am I?” “What is my nature and purpose?” They do not show any evidence of perceiving sensory input as anything beyond a data stream to guide their pre-programmed task. They don’t interpret or contextualize their experiences as pain, or pleasure, or love, or hate, or fear, or hope. If they do, they’re keeping it a damn good secret from us.

Without any of these elements, robots have no deeper ethical dimension about sexuality than any of the old fashioned vibration type devices long in use. One can raise questions about whether masturbation as a pre-occupation wastes time, or distracts from human interaction, but there is no ethical aspect remotely similar to that of relations between humans and animals and certainly nothing approaching the issue of marriage as one sentient being contracting with another.

ivan_the_mad

“here is no ethical aspect remotely similar to that of relations between humans and animals”. You’re just restating your assertion from above, still without proof. Your response talked about robots and their lack of capacity for ethical dimensions or emotions. You asserted above that “This has no serious ethical dimension and certainly no relation to a marriage issue”. An ethical dilemma would involve a person … you know, who could have an ethical dilemma to begin with. I’ll even graciously concede that robots, CD-ROM drives, routers, cell phones etc would have a very difficult time having ethical dilemmas. Let’s not even worry about marriage, just the first part of the statement. Prove “there’s no ethical dilemma”. Hint: Talk about the person and how they’re directing their appetite, not the fact that the object of their appetite can’t have ethical dimensions. And if you’re going to say it’s just like masturbation and move on, please remember that a) you need to do a bit more legwork for argument by analogy than just assert the analogy and b) a rather large portion of the Earth’s population adheres to religions that do, in fact, condemn masturbation as immoral. And if you’re going to claim that not everyone shares that “value”, well, not everyone shares your “value”, so that doesn’t really buy much, does it? The sword of moral relativism cuts both ways.

kenneth

I don’t deny that there are religions that have a problem with masturbation. Mine is not one of them, but that’s neither here nor there for the purposes of this debate.

The theme of the post and many of the responses is that “legitimizing” human homosexual relations has somehow eliminated all basis for moral reasoning on anything to do with sexual activity and that therefore we are destined for all sorts of “novel horrors” including bestiality and, it would seem, relations with robots. Whatever level of horror one may attach to the act of masturbation, I’m simply saying that the involvement of robots as they currently exists introduces nothing novel into the equation. The Christian objection to this activity derives largely from the fact that it is “pointless” ie non procreative in nature. That being the case, the specific physical means used to accomplish it would not seem to compound or mitigate the offense.

Nor do I see any particular threat in the form of homosexual legitimization acting as a mechanism to encourage lots of people to substitute robots for humans. Attraction to objects is an ancient niche fetish and has not acquired any significant new moral or ethical issues with the addition of robots. That may well change with robotic developments. Whether this constitutes “proof” or not, I’ll leave to the reader. It’s an argument based on my understanding of the issues at play.

ivan_the_mad

“It’s an argument based on my understanding of the issues at play.” I’ll accept that, although of course I disagree with you. Just note that when you say something like “There is no ethical dilemma here”, that’s a much more authoritative statement than “I don’t see any ethical dilemma here” – the former statement is appealing to an objective moral order. If that’s not what you’re trying to do, you should take care – especially on a blog like this 😉

Rosemarie

+J.M.J+

>>>I have not seen any evidence that any robot has developed the kind of awareness of “myself” or to ask the big open ended questions such as “who am I?” “What is my nature and purpose?”

I haven’t sen any evidence that animals do that either.

kenneth

There’s a wide swath of ground between the complete lack of sentience of machines and human sentience. Animal’s place on that spectrum is very complex and very poorly understood, but animals clearly have the ability to suffer, and show empathy and from companionships and demonstrate some sort of individual will. We don’t accord them personhood in our law because it relies on the ability to express one’s desires and interact with the world in other ways as humans do. Nevertheless, their clear status as living things which can perceive pain and distress imposes ethical considerations in our relations with them that are vastly different than our dealings with machines of any sort.

DTMcCameron

I’m curious, should a particularly long lived robot to not having “true sentience and the capacity for emotion’ at the time of its creation, being used as a masturbatory aid, but later receiving an upgrade granting it both the aforementioned qualifiers, retaining memory of the previous usage, have cause to file statutory rape charges against its users?

kenneth

I don’t know, but somewhere there are a whole bunch of underemployed ethicists and lawyers who would love to set up a think tank on that very question, if you have the money to pay them well. My guess is that robots would not accrue the rights of personhood until they had achieved sentience and could not retroactively apply that to some prior time when they had no more legal standing than a vacuum cleaner.

DTMcCameron

I’m not opposed to ethicists working themselves to death, that is, the one’s we have are enough, and could always do with less. ‘ve much the same feeling towards lawyers.

Mmm, so no born-child suing the doctor for trying to off him while she was in the womb, as, whatever her rights as a person, she keenly lacked the particular one of not being killed.

I suppose then arguments might be made that the unborn lacked true sentience and capacity for emotion, and therefore, personhood.

Ted Seeber

No moral dilemma to encouragement of a behavior that could end the speices?

kenneth

If you can come up with any plausible demographic projections that show significant population decrease as a result of robot fetishism, I’m all ears. My bet is that even if we were able to pin down the true magnitude of the effect, we wouldn’t even be looking at baseline decreases in population. We MIGHT be looking at a decrease in the rate of population growth of a few thousandths of one percent.

Ted Seeber

Goes right back to Japan- the home of robot fetishism, as well as one of the biggest demographic implosion bombs in the world. Heck, the entire reason they’re giving for their immense achievement in the field is the lack of human companionship for the elderly and a distinct failure to breed in the younger (post WWII) generations. Their birth rate is far below replacement rate already.

Chris

Who says the animal doesn’t enjoy it, too? And if individuals don’t want to have control over their sexual appetite (homosexual or otherwise), they’ve devolved into animals, anyway. So it’s really a peer relationship any way you look at it.

Marthe Lépine

Extinction IS already coming: Look at the birth rate statistics in industrialized countries!

http://www.barefootandpregnantblog.blogspot.com Calah

Ew. Just, EW. (Apparently I can’t just say “ew” because WordPress thinks that makes my comment too short, but I don’t think I should have to explain that reaction, so I’ll just say it again. Ew.)

joannemcportland

The New Times article comes from 2009, and was written in the context of Florida’s passage of stricter penalties for bestiality. Not saying there aren’t people who would defend anything, but I’m convinced the writer was deliberately penning an LGBT-rights comparison hoax, complete with statistics, they-don’t-understand-us tales of interspecies romance, the-heart-wants-what-it-wants pleas, etc. Has anybody actually traced all the “citations”? (I would, but my browsing history is already pretty scary.) Can’t imagine why New Advent headlined it this week, and I don’t see any point in perpetuating it.

Sandra Miesel

In the Middle Ages, it was usual to execute both the perp and the animal in cases of bestiality but in one case, mercy prevailed and the beast was spared because he had been “an honest donkey of good conversation.” However, in the 16th C, the Spanish Inquisition of Aragon executed more than two dozen men for this crime. No cases mentioned elsewhere in Spain.

Mark Shea

I love that you know this.

thomas tucker

There were twenty-four men of old Spain Who with their fair donkeys had lain They wound up in a fire A condition most dire But the donkeys escaped all the pain.

DTMcCameron

Except for the years of therapy, I’m sure.

Mark not Shea

You know, they could starting breeding (!) animals specifically for zoophiles. Kinda like breeding dogs for sheep herding. “Looking for something special this Valentine’s Day, try a Love Puppy!”

Mark not Shea

Of course, schools will have to ban the term puppy love…

Elaine

That article was so disturbing I can’t joke or laugh about it. It is tragic that people live like that. The boy’s parents must be devastated. What an incredible waste of a human life.

“My cultural conditioning is right, any contradicting it must be wrong.”

Still hanging with those pagan skinheads you were bragging about before?

keddaw

Informed consent, dear boy, informed.

However, if the animal is dead…

DTMcCameron

Zoo-necrophilia? THAT, sir, is just PERVERSE!

Mulder

You guys are all zoophobes. /sarcasm

Rhinestone Suderman

I’ve seen this coming, for a long time.

Once gay marriage is approved, by the government (and it will be, eventually), polygamy will be the next big fight on the agenda—with, of course, zoophiles, and groups like NAMBLA pushing their own causes. (The OWS is already protesting efforts to stop sex trafficking of minors.) All these movements will, like gay marriage, be presented as civil rights/human rights movements; if you’re against polygamy, you’re a hard-hearted puritain, and probably vote Republican!

The pro-polygamy movement will move much more quickly than the gay marriage movement, which paved the way for it; it will be supported, among others, by Moslems, Hollywood and disaffected males, who blame feminism for the fact they have a hard time getting along with women. (Divorce attorneys will support it too, for obvious reasons.) Once the new polygamy laws pass, many of the more sensible feminists will start getting seriously worried—but it will be too late by then. Disaffected males, who hoped for their own harems, will be disappointed too—but it will be too late for them, as well.

Polygamy will open the gate to Shari’a law being instituted in America. After all (so the argument will go), Islam has a proven track record of issuing laws concerning multiple wives, so why not go to it, to help ease this “New kind of family” into the mainstream. So, shari’a will be established. At which point, all those same-sex couples who registered as married will start getting seriously worried—but it will be too late, by then.

The Catholic Church will refuse to go along with it, and will be condemed as Islamophobic and anti-woman.

I really hope I’m wrong about this prediction. But I’m afraid I’m not.

kenneth

I think polygamy should be legalized for the protection of the parties and especially the children involved. These arrangements are already going on, and very likely within a short drive of everyone reading this blog (unless you live in the boonies where nothing is a short drive). The biggest challenge will be in crafting a new body of family and divorce law to handle things equitably. The other concern goes back to my original core concept of consent. Some, but by no means all, of these arrangements, are known to involve older men and underage “wives.” Those sorts of situations and domestic abuse would be much easier to police if people could live without fear of prosecution simply for their living arrangements.

Alias Clio

Er, Kenneth, like so many people who argue these issues from an individualist perspective, you show no ability to grasp that the various forms of marriage have MASSIVE social consequences that affect everyone when those forms are permitted to co-exist in a legal system.

Polygamy is not just another form of marriage. It’s not even just another form of marriage like gay marriage. Remembering the significant fact that the sexes are born and grow up in roughly equal numbers – 105 boys to 100 girls, I understand – polygamy allows some men to monopolize the attentions of women: if one man has 6 wives, 5 other men will not be able to get wives at all. That unequal division in turn can lead to all kinds of social disorders – have you never heard that men without wives (and children) are more likely to be restless, rootless, and, in the worst case, violent?

To talk as if the great danger of polygamy is the possible lack of consent on the part of the perhaps underage wives, or the potential neglect of some children, is so short-sighted that it boggles the mind. Do you not see that the people most likely to suffer under polygamy are – wait for it – young men and old women?

No amount of policing for domestic abuse and the other concerns you raise can make up for the fact that in polygamous societies, there will not be enough women to go around – unless there are enough polyandrous women to make up the difference, which seems unlikely. Remember, too, that most people of my sex are what is called hypergamous; i.e., we “trade up” for the most powerful man available to us, when in the state of nature.

kenneth

You’re assuming that all polyamory has and will continue to follow the model of splinter LDS sects where one guy has 10 “sister wives.” It’s not unheard of at all for a woman to have more than one husband. I personally know of several who do, or who have a functionally equivalent arrangement. There are also a lot of “man-sharing” arrangements these days that arise because there are damn few men of partnership caliber, especially as people get into their upper 30s and 40s. In any case, no one is going to go in for polyamory simply because it happens to be legally recognized someplace. It’s not for everyone. Conversely, its illegality has not and never will deter anyone who wants to live like that. Often I find many of the “save marriage” conservative Christians are at least partly on board with my position on polyamory. It’s procreative most often, the Bible is full to the brim with it, and everyone involved has the “correct” anatomy.

Rhinestone Suderman

The problem with robo-sex isn’t what it does to the robot. It what it does to you.

Here you are, with your mindless robot lover—a machine, that obeys you unquestioningly, does whatever you ask it, never talks back, never has a differing opinion, never gets angry, even when you abuse it. This will make it more difficult to relate to real people, in the real world.

Machines have no souls.

kenneth

“…..that obeys you unquestioningly, does whatever you ask it, never talks back, never has a differing opinion, never gets angry, even when you abuse it…. ”

Now you’re just trying to sell me a robot! It won’t work, unless she’s VERY human-like in every way AND looks like Helle Thorning-Schmidt. You and the Japanese have your work cut out for you.

Eugenia

So basically the word “zoo” will be hijacked to mean something other than a place to view animals as “gay” has changed to mean a lifestyle rather than meaning happy.

Elizabeth S

What about objectophiles, those that love objects? According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_sexuality the Eiffel tower, Berlin Wall, and Statue of Liberty are all already taken. Can I marry my couch, or will that run into consent issues since I paid for it and thus might only be supporting my weight because I coerced it?

Rhinestone Suderman

I find it interesting, Kenneth, you avoid the issues I raise in my post with a silly joke.

kenneth

I’ve engaged the robot sex issue at length. More than I ever would have anticipated, even as a second generation Asimov fan and a man who believes that “Bladerunner” is prophecy. I just simply don’t think this nanofiber of a tiny sliver of the fetish community represents a moral or population depletion problem of any great magnitude.

ds

High on a hill was a lonely goatherd,Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo!

Rhinestone Suderman

If robo-sex becomes cheap enough, and popular enough, and the elites begin to push it as a fun-filled, alternative “Lifestyle”, it will no longer be confined to a sliver of the fetish community.

kenneth

The elites do what they do, and robots would be a relatively harmless outlet for them. It might divert them from inbreeding so much and their other favorite past time, drunkenly assaulting the domestic help or the poor Guatemalan peasant woman who irons their shorts.

Rhinestone Suderman

Alias Clio, not only are older women, and young men victims of polygamy—young women are victimized too, as they are sold off in marriage to the local Big Boss/Chieftain/Sultan/Fearless Leader, in exchange for favors for their families. Really, the only ones with anything to gain from polygamy are rich and powerful older males, whose position in the community is completely secure. (Younger, less favored males, are sent off on missionary work, or uged to go out and fight for their community’s ideology, or sidelined in some other way.)

I’m unaware of any society, outside of, perhaps, some small and out of the way ones, where polyandry ever worked, or worked for very long; the natural course of the multiple spouse system seems to be towards the One powerful man surrounded by many less powerful women, model; and the rich and powerful men, who will end up in charge for this system, will not allow any polyandrous system to develop. (And, of course, such a system would have as many problems as polygamy has.)

Polyamoury is an inherently unstable social model for families, and, from my experience in the legal business, looks to be just as exploitive of women as Polygamy, and is damaging to kids. (Like polygamy, it tends to center around the one or two Alpha males in the group, surrounded by the majority of females—fighting lawfare against each other, as to who gets what, when, where and how. And no one wants responsibility for any kids that result. . . )

kenneth

There is a lot more diversity in these arrangements than most people realize, because a lot of these folks fly below radar and by no means are all of them LDS or religiously motivated. I’ve seen “triads” which are run by an alpha female, couples with a “second wife” that loves to help with the household and kids. Like I say, it’s not for everyone, but for some subset of the population, it seems to be no more unstable or crazy than any “standard” marriage arrangement. I just don’t see how keeping it underground benefits anyone, least of all the victims of exploitative situations.

Rhinestone Suderman

Many lawyers like it, though, as it offers endless palimony suits, paternity suits, lawsuits and other things they can make money from.

kenneth

The legal profession desperately needs new sources of work these days. Routine legal work of the sort that kept big firms lights on and gave young lawyers job security is all but gone, lost to do-it-yourself software etc. Even a lot of uncontested divorces get done with the click of a mouse. Polyamorous breakups with child custody issues is golden for the legal profession.

Rhinestone Suderman

For a fun summer read, and a good look at what polyamoury/polygamy is actually like in practice, I recommend the book “Orange Sunshine”, a history of an Orange County drug peddling commune in Laguna Beach, during the 70’s.

In the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, the men spent their time surfing, getting high and picking up underage teenage girls in nearby Laguna Beach. Their wives kept house, grew vegetables, learned to weave, took care of the kids—in short, they did all the grunt work, and put up with their husbands’ affairs. Free love, bay-bay!

When Timothy Leary’s handsome young son showed up at the commune, and many of the ladies became interested in him, he was considered disruptive to their little community—in a way that all the 14-year old girl runaways never were.

kenneth

An account of one scene in the 70s in California is hardly an authoritative source for what something is in practice today. I don’t doubt that the sorts of problems of that community you mention can crop up again, but it’s hardly the final word on the matter.

Rhinestone Suderman

Yu can also study the history of polygamy in the Islamic world, turn of the century morman communities, Africa, Asia, etc.

I think the final word on this matter is actually in; older women, younger men, younger women, all lose when polygamy comes in; Alpha males get to be top dogs. (As do lawyers.) People can, and will, try it again, but that doesn’t mean it will work.

(Children also lose out in such arrangements.)

(And any time people tried to set up free love communities, during the 70’s, or in places like the Oneida community, or King Strang’s group in Upstate New York, the results seem pretty much the same as those for the “Brotherhood of Love”; the Alpha males are the ones who benefit; women are kept busy, and out of the way of masculine—coff, coff—pastimes! While technically women are entitled to free love too, it never seems to work out that way, for them. Finally, the whole thing usually implodes in scandals, and lawsuits. In my own experience, the problem with polyamorous groups seems to be that, to paraphrase the Bible, “They do not have polygamy in their hearts.” The women want the attention of the one, Alpha male, and think they can beat out all the females in the group, to get it. Again, it’s usually the lawyers, who gain.)

(“Orange Sunshine” is an interesting read about a very strange time, and place, anyway, and can be recommended for that.)

Rhinestone Suderman

It may be golden for the legal profession, Kenneth, but it’s a big, smelly, lump of, ah—-garbage, shall we say? —for everybody else.

Rhinestone Suderman

‘Cuz, as we know, all rich people are evil! They’re evil ‘cuz they’re capitalists! And capitalism is EVIL! It makes rich people rape their poor, third-world Hispanic maids of color! Quick, we need robo-sex, to keep them from assaulting their hapless servants!

/Hokay, sarc. off.

What the elites do, and the things they push (And, here, I’m thinking of Hollywood, media pundits, talk show hosts, popular writers, etc.), always affect the culture, in our media-saturated society.